{"id":87,"date":"2012-03-02T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T19:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=87"},"modified":"2012-03-02T20:01:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T19:01:00","slug":"a-month-of-math-software-february-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"A Month of Math Software &#8211; February 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the latest edition of A Month of Math Software which includes information on a new language for scientific computing, statistics software education in New Zealand as well as the usual mix of mathematical and scientific software releases from the worlds of commercial and free software.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like something added to next month&#8217;s edition then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?page_id=2055\">contact me<\/a> (it&#8217;s free).\u00a0 If you want to see old editions then take a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?cat=47\">the MMS archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A new language for scientific computing<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/julialang.org\/\">Julia<\/a> is a &#8220;new high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language for technical  computing, with syntax that is familiar to users of other technical  computing environment.&#8221;\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t tried it yet but it looks great and includes a Just In Time compiler (JIT) to help boost performance.\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/julialang.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/why-we-created-julia\/\">Blog post on why the authors created Julia<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.johndcook.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/22\/julia-random-number-generation\/\">John D Cook writes some simple non-uniform random number generators in Julia.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/julialang.org\/manual\/\">Online manual for Julia<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Have you test driven Julia?\u00a0 Let me know what you think in the comments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Learn statistics with the free GenStat for teaching and Learning (GTL)<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vsni.co.uk\/software\/genstat\">Genstat<\/a> is a commercial data analysis tool with an emphasis on the biosciences and they have a free version called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vsni.co.uk\/software\/teaching\/genstat-teaching\">GenStat for Teaching and Learning<\/a>.\u00a0 This is currently being used to teach statistics in many schools in New Zealand (among other places) and a paper has been written about it called <a href=\"http:\/\/escholarship.org\/uc\/item\/1fn7k2x3\">Learning Statistics Using Motivational Videos, Real Data and Free Software<\/a>.\u00a0 Finally, check out these <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maths.otago.ac.nz\/videos\/statistics\/\">free videos, data sets and lesson plans<\/a> that use the software.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mathcad Prime<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.ptc.com\/2012\/02\/29\/mathcad-prime-2-0-is-here\/\">Mathcad Prime 2.0 has been released<\/a> and has lots of new improvements.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve never been a fan of Mathcad and Prime 1.0 was a big disappointment for me but many people seem to like it.\u00a0 Let me know if you are one of them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Attack of the clones<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A major new release of the free MATLAB clone, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/software\/octave\/\">Octave<\/a>, has is now available.\u00a0 Version 3.6.1 has lots of new goodies and you can read all about them in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/software\/octave\/NEWS-3.6.html\">3.6.1 NEWS file<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Version 13.7 of the MATLAB-like Euler Math Toolbox is now available.\u00a0 See the <a href=\"http:\/\/eumat.sourceforge.net\/versions\/version-13.html\">change log<\/a> for the improvements.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.smath.info\/forum\/default.aspx?g=posts&amp;t=1201\">Version 0.92<\/a> of the popular Mathcad clone,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smathstudio.com\/\"> Smath studio<\/a>, was released in February.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Number theory<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A new version of <a href=\"http:\/\/pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr\/\">PARI\/GP<\/a> is now available for download.\u00a0 From the software&#8217;s website: &#8220;PARI\/GP is a widely used computer algebra system designed for fast computations in number theory (factorizations, algebraic number theory, elliptic curves&#8230;), but also contains a large number of other useful functions to compute with mathematical entities such as matrices, polynomials, power series, algebraic numbers etc., and a lot of transcendental functions.&#8221;\u00a0 Head over to <a href=\"http:\/\/pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr\/pub\/pari\/unix\/pari-2.5.1.changelog\">the changelog<\/a> to see what&#8217;s new.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Perl and Python<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you like to work with the Perl programming language then you should take a look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/pdl.perl.org\/\">Perl Data Language (PDL)<\/a>.\u00a0 A new version was released in February&#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/projects\/pdl\/files\/PDL\/2.4.10\/README.txt\/view\">version 2.4.10<\/a>&#8212; which includes automatic multi-thread support among other things.<\/li>\n<li>If you prefer Python, you&#8217;ll probably like to know that<a href=\"http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/projects\/scipy\/files\/scipy\/0.10.1\/\"> version 0.10.1 of scipy<\/a>, the scientific library for python, has been released.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Math software on tablets<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Mathematica kernel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=4185\">is now running on iPad<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>GeoGebra is a superb piece of free software for mathematics learning and teaching.\u00a0 Thanks to the release of the beta version of GeoGebraWeb, you can now experience some of the GeogGebra goodness on Tablets and Chromebooks.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geogebra.org\/forum\/viewtopic.php?f=48&amp;t=26023\">This forum post<\/a> gives the details.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Finite Elements<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>February saw the release of two new C++ libraries: ViennaMath and ViennaFEM.\u00a0 The author of the libraries writes &#8220;The symbolic math kernel library ViennaMath (<a href=\"http:\/\/viennamath.sourceforge.net\/\">http:\/\/viennamath.sourceforge.net\/<\/a>) written in C++ allows for both runtime and compiletime evaluation, differentiation, integration, and substitution of simple mathematical expressions. In short, ViennaMath offers some of the advantages of full-fledged computer algebra systems such as Mathematica or Maple directly within C++. The symbolic math kernel is intended to be used for numerical applications and is included in the new finite element library ViennaFEM (<a href=\"http:\/\/viennafem.sourceforge.net\/\">http:\/\/viennafem.sourceforge.net\/<\/a>), which allows for the specification of either the strong or the weak formulation of the underlying PDE directly in code. Even though ViennaFEM is still in alpha-state, the first release already supports grids in 1d, 2d (triangular,quadrilateral) and 3d (tetrahedral, hexahedral).&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>From the blogs<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.nag.com\/2012\/02\/how-to-solve-nlls-problem-using-sqp.html\">How to solve a NLLS problem using SQP method in Excel?<\/a> &#8211; From The Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/2012\/02\/06\/using-gpus-in-matlab\/\">Using GPUs in MATLAB<\/a> &#8211; From The Mathworks (click here for my articles on GPUs in MATLAB)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/matlabgeeks.com\/tips-tutorials\/how-to-blur-an-image-with-a-fourier-transform-in-matlab-part-i\/\">How to Blur an Image with a Fourier Transform in Matlab \u2013 Part I<\/a> &#8211; From MATAB Geeks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the latest edition of A Month of Math Software which includes information on a new language for scientific computing, statistics software education in New Zealand as well as the usual mix of mathematical and scientific software releases from the worlds of commercial and free software. If you&#8217;d like something added to next month&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-math-software","category-month-of-math-software"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3swhs-1p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4205,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/4205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}